Grrr...MIL set up FB account for my 7 year old
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Anonymous
| Wow, impressive that your MIL knows how to set up a Facebook page, but this may be an example of where having a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing! |
Anonymous
Looks like the grandparents (all of them!) need to be educated in internet / social media behavior. Not only opening an account for a minor against the FB rules is a poor choice (illegal, even!), but this would be a good time to have a FRIENDLY discussion about their own accounts, what pictures get posted, how to set up the privacy level, who gets invited, etc. DH could be of great help adding weight to this conversation. Someone who does IT can, however, be still blind to the risks in a public network, since they live in a protected intranet bubble... Take this less as a slight and more as an opportunity to educate all involved. Otherwise, you'll keep running into the issue in the future. As for '13', those are the FB rules, which is a minimum. Your rules should be based on observed behavior, responsibility, readiness. Make the guidelines and enforce them. There is no magic age for FB, even if the friends are doing it. If the GP want to set up something, you could guide them to an age appropriate game, like Club Penguin on the strictest setting (they can see each other's penguin avatar but can only communicate with predefined snippets), or Minecraft. That is something that many 7or 8 year olds are into. If you do that, make sure all the friends share the same server, so that they can find each other. These services have no directory, so physical sharing of a screen name is required to know that "lulu' is in friend your neighbor 'Annie'. Grandma can get an account herself and they can play games even when they are not together. Of course, discussing time limits with DD will still get you the "bad mother" reply... |
Anonymous
OP here...sorry I haven't been back. Been busy with a sick 4 month old  Anyways, thanks all for the replies.
Anyways, a few things. DD's FB page is down. We told DD that it was against the rules of FB and it was also against our rules, which she knows. Apparently I'm now the worst mother in the whole wide world. Although, a couple of weeks ago, I was also the worst mother in the whole world because I wouldn't let her friend sleepover on a school night. Yay, can't wait to repeat this stage with our son. Anyways, MIL has her own FB account is is fairly tech saavy so it wasn't a surprise she could set up a page for DD. DH spoke to her about it and she, apparently, rolled her eyes at DH and said some guilt trippy line about how she'll make sure DD has no fun at grandma's house anymore. Also, MIL does know the dangers of the internet. She set up parental controls on DH's computer when he was growing up, and she often comments about how she can't believe her daughter allows her 13 year old son to talk to strangers over his headphones while playing video games on his computer. She is aware of the creepos on the internet, but for whatever reason she still thought it was ok to set up a FB account. Oh well, that problem is solved. I give DD another day or so to get over how terrible of a mom I am, then we will have a few days of how I'm awesome, and then I"m sure ill be back to ruining her life. Can't wait for the teenage years!!!! |
Anonymous
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WOW. I would be LIVID! I would read MIL the riot act and wouldn't care how pissy she got about it. If I couldn't trust MIL to behave responsibly with my young child and the internet I would supervise their alone time for years to come. Sounds like MIL is passive aggressive or selfish (or both).
Is she open to reason? If so, send her a link to a Common Sense Media article on children and the internet. Although, if she's been through this with another grandchild and has an account of her own it sounds like she knew exactly what she was doing. It also sounds like DH needs to grow a spine. If MIL is behaving like this when the kids are so young can you imagine how manipulative she'll be when they're teenagers and are legally allowed to do such things. I understand why PP's have suggested that you deal with it in a lighthearted way but seriously, if you *AND* DH don't lay down the law HARD with MIL now, she's going to run all over you and teach DD how to do so also. Gotta nip it in the bud. |
Anonymous
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OP, I know you already handled it, but I wanted to give my take on this. if your DD knows the rules, that should be enough at her age. And that would be what I would focus on - not that MIL didn't know the rules, but that DD DID know the rules. that's how we teach our kids when they are old enough to get it.
Bottom line is that YOU have rules for YOUR house and YOUR DD. And your dd should know enough that if MIL said, let's set up a facebook account for you, she should have said, I can't Mom and Dad won't let me have one yet. And if our DD didn't correct MIL and set up the FB account, our DD is the one that gets in trouble for not saying no. I use the analogy that our rule is no alcohol until your 21. (or whatever bad vice - no drugs, no guns, whatever). If someone offers you drugs, it's YOUR responsibility to say no. we can't control what the world offers you (including grandma, neighbors, friends, aunts uncles) but we can control what we say yes and no to. And you know YOUR rules and you must follow them. Of course, we also let grandparents, aunts uncles, etc. know what we approve of or not, but when something like this happens, and your DD is old enough to know better, it's on her to police herself. |
Anonymous
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OP here -
DD got punished for asking MIL to set up a FB account for her. I'm annoyed she ignored our rules, but I'm also not entirely surprised. Her cousin/best friend recently got a FB account (at 10, so the whole FB rules argument wouldn't have worked) and she's been begging us ever since. We dealt with her about it though and she knows what she did was wrong, although she still hates us. ( I swear my own mom is laughing at me whenever I talk to her about DD because she is an exact replica of me at that age). As for MIL, I'm probably sounding way more harsh than I mean to. With a sick baby, I have been getting zero sleep for the past week. I'm not so much annoyed that she set one up, I'm mostly annoyed that she did so without asking us first. It just makes me a little nervous about what else she might do in the future without asking us first. Overall, MIL is a very nice person and we have always gotten along well. I just think there are times where she thinks she knows better than us. Of course, my mom can be like that sometimes too, so perhaps it is just a grandparent thing. DD is supposed to be going there in a couple of weeks for a girls night with her cousins (painting nails, girly movies, virgin strawberry daiquiris etc) so I think DH and I need to address the whole, not doing things without our permission thing. Just not sure how to go about it. Don't want MIL to take it the wrong way and call us to ask permission on petty things "Oh DD wants some ice cream, is it ok if I get her one?" etc. I can see her doing this out of spite since she'll feel like we are attacking her judgement. And PPs are right...we need to nip this in the bud before her teenage years. |
Anonymous
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I wouldn't be livid, nor would I overreact and yell at MIL.
She was meaning well, she just didn't think things through. (Unless she has a history of overstepping boundaries, in which case that's a different story.) SImple enough to say "Grandma meant well, but she didn't ask us about our rules. YOU DD knew the rules and you didn't let Grandma know (or perhaps you did and grandma said not to worry about it..." There will be some fallout from your DD of course but that just builds character. meanwhile, I would NOT delete the account. Last year my 11 year old niece had a problem when a girl in her school created an account in my nieces name, posted some pictures of her, and started friending her older sister's friends and older friends who had FB accounts... all without her knowing about it (at first!) and then caused all sorts of preteen drama. It was all sorted out, but it showed me the value of claiming a FB page for your child in the most common form of his/her name, just to stake out the "real page" and be able to dissuade forgeries. Leave the account up, but set it to private and change the password so your child can't access it until she is 13! |
Anonymous
| PP parent of a third grader here. Now mine's a boy but I literally can't imagine any one of his friends on FB. I've never heard another parent talk about it at this age. I think you're right to draw the line but I'm still puzzled at where/how/why this is seeping down to such young kids. Is it a gender thing (ie the boys are playing video games while the girls are on FB)? |
Anonymous
+1 You need to check this B-I. Otherwise, you'll be on pins and needles waiting for the next genius move by Grandma. Hope she's not a hippie ,but then again if she is at least you'll know where little Larla got her little Mary Jane habit from. Of course to MIL it'll be "no big deal". How does that sit with you. Nip this shit in the bud, NOW!!! |